Adoption
by BekCholie
Summary: Sherlock isn't happy when John wants to adopt... a dog, that is! Post-Reinbach, after Sherlock's return. Non-romantic Sherlock/John story. No flames! First Sherlock fanfic.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: I tried my best, I'm afraid Sherlock may be quite a bit OOC, and John a bit too. **_

_**Also, the picture is by **_**applejaxshii**_** on Deviantart**_

Sherlock should have expected it.

The first signs were evident when John came home one Thursday night (January 12, to be exact) after work at St. Bart's, telling him about how someone and their significant other had just gotten a new puppy.

For the most part, Sherlock drowned it out, focusing on what could potentially be a perfect murder (he was bored, and this was his third hypothetical "perfect murder" in the past twenty minutes. He had almost finished rebut every detail of it to the point of starting over again) and rotated the skull in his hands.

Until John asked they could have a dog.

It was almost like a child, begging for a dog. Sherlock was familiar with the tone, the wide eyes, and subtle hints; Mycroft had performed the act very well when they were children, enough that Sherlock could imitate it perfectly, though not with the same pleasing results.

Sherlock closed his eyes and leaned back further into the couch. "No, John."

"Why not?"

Speaking in his rather rapid pace, the ebony haired man declared, "First, if we got a dog, I would be the one who would have to take care of it because you are at work during the day. Second, we live in an apartment, and it wouldn't get the attention and exercise it required. Finally, because we live in an apartment, we have eight neighbors. If the neighbors complain to Mrs. Hudson, she will complain to you, and then you will complain to me. Eventually, we would have to get rid of the animal."

John sighed, and continued his way to the kitchen.

The subject didn't come up again until three weeks and four days later, February 6, when John offered to walk his girlfriend's dogs in the early hours of the morning. He'd walk over to her house, use the key to the woman's apartment to pick up the dogs while she slept, take the dogs to Baker Street and ask Sherlock to help him get breakfast going. Of course, Sherlock questioned the whole routine, debating that John could walk the two blocks around his girlfriend's apartment and favorite café, and it would surely be more efficient. Besides that, he was not obligated to doing meaningless tasks for women that dumped him within three weeks (the longest held out for two weeks, six days, and three hours before calling John and ending their relationship)

John, of course, said that it would be more efficient if they had a dog of their own that he wouldn't have to go pick up to walk.

Within five days of the first walk, John and his girlfriend parted ways, and the morning walks ended.

After constant verbal pursuits, John eventually brought home a short haired, sixteen inch tall dog.

Sherlock didn't notice at first, he was too caught in this two nicotine patch problem. When he finally finished figuring out the problem, he opened his ice blue eyes to find John sitting in the nearby chair with an alert dog lying at John's feet, staring forward at the window.

"John?"

"Hm?"

"Why is there a dog in the flat?"

John looked down at the dog at his feet. "Oh. This is Kongo. I asked Marina if I could borrow him for the weekend, to see if we liked have a dog in the house."

Sherlock suppressed a sigh and closed his eyes. "What did I tell you about getting a dog?"

"Not to."

"No, I said 'I would be the one who would have to take care of it because you are at work during the day.' I will not look after a dog, exercise it, feed it, and coddle it. Therefore, you will return this dog to Marina _right now_ and quit pushing the subject."

"But Sherlock…"

"No."

"But he won't bark."

Sherlock opened one eye and examined the dog. "Of course he won't. He's a Basenji*. He'll growl, and run and disturb the peace of the flat." He closed his eyes again, and removed the patches on his arm.

"What peace?"

Sherlock ignored his friend, remembering that this remark was a form of a joke, and threw out the patches into the rubbish bins*.

"Look, Sherlock: Kongo doesn't require much grooming, and Marina gave me the food and toothbrush he would need, and also gave me his leash," John held up the aforementioned item, "and I would run him every day, and all you would have to do is put a scoop of food into a bowl for him in the morning and at night, and maybe toss a ball down the hall. That's it."

Sherlock only glared.

"It's only for the weekend." John pleaded.

Sherlock's jaw tightened. "Fine. But this doesn't mean we'll be getting a dog for ourselves. You can just take care of the dog for the weekend."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"John, I said 'no,' which is a very clear answer. Now _quit asking_." Sherlock hissed at the shorter man beside him.

The shorter of the two was holding up a Silk Terrier, with pleading eyes. The pair was at a rescue center with plenty of cats and dogs, and quite a few families- more than expected, considering it was an early Wednesday afternoon.

"Well, what about the Welsh Corgi?"

"I said no dog."

"I thought the Cardigan Welsh Corgi was cute."

"Were you not listening to that dog bark? Mrs. Hudson would be on us in twenty minutes if we brought that mutt home."

John sighed, and replaced the Terrier back into the kennel.

"How are you two coming along?" An elderly volunteer asked, directed more at John than Sherlock. Sherlock grimaced, and cut off John before he could speak,

"Wonderful. We were just leaving."

"Did you happen to find a breed you liked?"

Simultaneously the colleagues said, "No" and "Well…"

The woman grinned and urged him on with a nod. "The German Shorthaired Pointer looked good, but maybe too big for us to handle."

"_Any_ dog is too much for us to handle." Muttered Sherlock.

The woman hummed in thought, and glanced at the dogs in the kennels, and waved John over to a kennel. John looked into it to find an Irish Setter puppy. He grinned and opened the kennel, petting and holding the puppy.

The volunteer turned around and pointed at Sherlock. "You. Follow me." The consulting detective eyed the woman wearily as she passed him to the other side of the room, and reluctantly trailed after her.

When John had finished playing with the puppy five minutes later, and deciding that it wouldn't be the best animal to bring home (a goldfish was probably be a better option, now that he considered it) and found that Sherlock was not in the same place he left him, looking on with disdain.

"Sherlock?"

"What?"

John found the midnight haired man sitting in a corner, his coat and scarf discarded on the floor next to him, sitting with his hands on his knees, waiting and watching John.

It took a few seconds for John to realize that there was a kitten sitting on Sherlock's shoulder.

"Why…?"

"-is there a cat on my shoulder? Apparently the woman wanted me to get shredded to pieces by their wildest, most disagreeable cat they had with them. She yowled quite a bit when she tried to pull her out of the cage and hand her over to me." Sherlock lifted up his hands, and with difficulty (for the cat acted in defense by burying her claws into his shirt to avoid being removed), pulled the cat off of his shoulder and put it into his lap, and stroked it on the head.

"And…?"

"And the cat had a staring contest with me for a while."

"You're kidding."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Of course not. Cats are curious, clever creatures. Humans can't tame them, and they _are_ quite temperamental at times. Still, the cat didn't scratch at me. When I passed whatever test the cat had in mind, she took quite a liking to me. Purring and rubbing and sitting on my shoulder. Only stopped moving once I began to give her attention."

"Why do you keep calling it 'the cat'?"

The volunteer returned. "Because she doesn't have a name. She was found abandoned on the front steps of the shelter last week, and no one will adopt her. I figured if Mr. Holmes could handle her, and since you wouldn't do very well with a dog, you might take her." A pause and then, "Though I have to admit, that him getting scratched up was my ulterior motive," she added in an amused murmur.

"Us? Have a cat?" John sounded distraught.

Sherlock sighed. "That is what the woman is saying, John. Besides, a cat would be easier to take care of than a dog. They do use litter boxes, don't they?"

John looked at the Russian Blue in his best friend's lap. The cat looked back up at him with light green eyes, evaluating the stocky man.

"Fine."

Sherlock grinned, pushed the cat off his lap, and stood up. The volunteer scurried off to gather the paperwork necessary to rid of the ebony man and his counterpart cat.

_**A/N:**_

_*** Basenji's are known as the barkless dog, because they're larynx is shaped strangely that they don't bark. They can growl, howl, and yip, but not bark. **_

_****Is that the right term? I'm American, and I couldn't remember what they're called in G.B., but I think that was what my friend and her father called them when I was at her house (She was born in England and returns there every summer, picking up the accent for her to shake off come September)**_

_***** Reference to **_The Cat Who… _**series by Lilian Jackson Braun, a mystery series about a journalist named Qwilleran and his Siamese cat Koko (and eventually Yum Yum). Very much like the Sherlock Holmes books, because you don't quite see the solution coming, and the clues are raised at the end and pieced together. Braun also leads you astray by tipping off the idea somebody else committed the murder/crime. You can start with any book in the series, though if you don't start from the beginning, I recommend starting with **_The Cat Who Could Read Backwards


	2. Chapter 2

John wondered how it was possible that he had survived with that cat for so long.

Dr. John Hamish Watson lived on 221B Baker Street with possibly the strangest sociopath you had ever met. Sherlock, the aforementioned sociopath, experimented on dead bodies- which he stored in the fridge- when he was bored, wore nicotine patches during cases (of which he was a "consulting detective") or got high when they weren't solving one, and got excited at the mention of an interesting homicide or scandal.

But it wasn't the man that worried John.

It was the cat.

The female Russian Blue cat that Sherlock and John had taken home almost exactly a month ago (John still called the cat Koko whenever his flatmate wasn't around to discourage him from doing so). Ms. Hudson has taken a strange liking to the cat; though the feline wasn't so found of the old woman's coddling and cooing- much like Sherlock. With John's persuasion, the landlady was allowed to chose a name among a list influenced by Sherlock and John as to what the cat would be named.

By the end of the first week, they had a list including names such as: Violet (John had hinted that Sherlock might have taken a liking to a young woman named Violet Hunter from one of their cases and still teased him in this way) Avalon, Blackie, Callie, Shira, and Jade. From this list, Ms. Hudson decided that the cat should have a full name, and proclaimed the cat to be Jade Shira Holmes-Watson.

Sherlock still called it "the cat."

It didn't take long for John to realize that whenever he returned from work or some other meaningless task- whether Sherlock be there or not- was that the cat was waiting for him.

Take last week for example:

John returned from shopping (it was most likely Thursday- John had never gotten the hang of Thursdays) and had walked into the flat with bags in his arms to find Jade sitting on the top of the chair, staring straight at John like a guard dog. This wasn't the first time it happened, John had noticed that Jade was sitting on the couch or the chair plenty of times, and always her ice green eyes would stop him in his tracks. After a small staring contest, he would move on into the flat to do whatever, and Jade would stalk off to find Sherlock- or do whatever it is that cats do.

After countless times of returning home in these conditions, John mustered up his courage (how was that he was scared of a harmless cat?) and walked over to his flatmate's counterpart and looked her directly in the eyes- alarmed by how much they reminded him of Sherlock's.

When Sherlock returned home from Scotland Yard- or maybe it was St. Bart's- after his daily tasks of mocking people ("Most people don't like to be called idiots, Sherlock. Especially not by you." ) to find them in their stalemate contest. He ignored this, and continued on his way to the kitchen to continue his latest experiment ("For how long does the human body continue making cells after death?" Part II)

Later that night, he found the cat and John still in their standstill. Sherlock cleaned off his hands from blood, pus, and some other bodily fluid that probably shouldn't have been on his hands, and walked over to the pair. The consulting detective patted the cat on the head and touched John's shoulder, causing for the two to glance at him from the corner of their eyes.

"Having a staring contest with the cat, are we John?" Sherlock showed no emotion, but John could have bet he was amused.

Annoyed, John grumbled about the cat starting it, and exited the room in reluctance, glancing back over his shoulder at his opponent. The cat followed Sherlock to the detective's room, and left John to go to his own.

**_A/N: Did you catch the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ reference?_**


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N: If you're reading my "She's Finally Figured It Out" fic, I apologize for the delay of chapters. I hit a major writer's block, but I might be on the verge of a break through.**_

"You can't be serious!" Donovan screeched.

"Let them through," Lestrade called from inside the crime scene.

"But he's got a **cat** with him."

"Well obviously, Anderson" Sherlock drawled. "The most idiotic things come out of your mouth these days. What did you think it was, an oversized bat?" With that, the dark haired consulting detective pushed through the two idiots before him, leaving John to trail after him with his eyes on the cat on Sherlock's shoulders.

The aforementioned black cat named Jade analyzed everyone and everything within sight much like her owner/pet* that she hovered on. Jade glared at the two antagonistic Scotland Yard employees who jumped in her gaze, surprised by the cat's intensity.

John scrambled up the stairs (_further proof that he had gotten over his limp, once again_, mused Sherlock silently) and came to a sudden stop soon enough to not run into Sherlock, who had stopped at the edge of the doorway, peering into the new crime scene grinning ("I don't think someone's death should make you happy, Sherlock").

However, at the end of Sherlock's deductions ("Average height man with size twelve boots, owns a horse, possibly his own ranch. Well known by the victim, but not good friends with victim; the killer must have been a client, coworker, or employer. Furthermore, this man is fairly isolated, and not married, and has a fair amount of enemies considering he keeps a shotgun on him when just visiting an acquaintance. But this wasn't just a simple murder, this was an accident gentlemen; notice the scuff marks showing some sort of fight for control, but it was the superior force that lies before us .") but came no closer to solving the killer's identity than Scotland Yard had ("We've already interviewed all coworkers and his boss, Sherlock. Nothing suspicious among the people he knew, and none of them fit your full description.") until Jade hopped off of Sherlock's crouching figure and ran out into the hallway of the house.

Both curious as to the cat's departure, Sherlock and John hesitantly followed the cat down the stairway and to the back of the house. Next to a closet near the back door of the house, they found the dark cat flicking her tail back and forth in the air and watching the approaching men. When they finally approached her (along with the annoyed Detective Inspector who was following them) Jade mewed and rubbed her head against the door.

"I think there's something wrong with your cat, John."

"It's not my cat, Greg."

Sherlock ignored their remarks, and pushed the cat away from the door gently with his foot and opened the door of the closet to find a man curled up in the corner of the closet with his face buried into his knees and a doubled-barrel shotgun pushed to the other side of the closet.

Sherlock backed up and allowed Lestrade to pull the man from the closet and handcuff him, and picked up the cat once again and pat her on the head with little affection before returning her to his shoulder.

"Good cat."

_***It can be debated whether or not a cat can be owned, but rather owns the person that takes care of it.**_


End file.
